15 Feb 2011

Cosmopolitan Blend Perfection Sponge Review

My post last week on the Cosmopolitan beauty brushes I won really created some interest and I was asked to review the brushes - in particular, this rather odd looking foundation sponge. So here it is.

Firstly, I normally use a brush to apply foundation so this was a different experience. I find the pro's of using a brush is that it gives a flawless coverage and reduces the amount of (expensive) foundation used for each application. However it takes some practice to use a brush, so a sponge is a great alternative. The pro's of a sponge is that they can be used dry to give a full, airbrushed coverage, but can also be used damp to give a really sheer coverage.

The Cosmopolitan blend perfection sponge is available for around £4.99 from Superdrug or Boots and is made of a strange latex material - almost like one of those squeezy stress balls. It therefore works very differently to a normal foundation sponge. It's to be used in a "bouncing" motion over the skin, with the larger ball area covering the face, and the pointy end to get into all the nooks and crannies like around the nose or eyes. The bouncing motion means you are stippling the foundation on to give quite a thick and airbrushed finish, but I found that rather than using one pump of foundation, I needed to use 2.

excuse the terrible hair! I scraped it back to show you the effect. As you can see, it gives a flawless but quite thick coverage, but didn't pick up any dry skin like a kabuki brush can. I don't know if I'd use it on a daily basis, I prefer my brush for a more natural coverage. However for a night out which requires heavier coverage then I'd choose this. I'd be really interested in trying it damp to see the effect.

I actually used the large end to apply my cream blusher too - I found it gave again a thick coverage but it was easy to blend with the sponge; and I also used the pointed end to blend my under-eye concealer in. It's definitely a handy multi-purpose tool to have in your makeup bag, and much cheaper than the very similar BeautyBlender makeup sponge which is £14.81